Resplendor
The Kingdom of Resplendor is a state occupying the Western Island of the Hebrides, as well as some of the smaller surrounding islands, most notably the Isle of Dritt. It is a semi-elective monarchy, currently ruled by Queen Suina IV. History Resplendor was formerly a tiny tribal kingdom, but culture and historical records from this time have been all but destroyed over time. In a way, it's true history began with the arrival of colonial settlers from the mainland around a thousand years ago, who conquered the kingdom and established it as a true chivalized monarchy. The natives and their culture were more or less eradicated in the process. Resplendor was originally happy to join the Federation, as it benefited peace and trade. However, the corrupt and ineffective Federal bureaucracy began to chafe after some time, and when the rest of the states of the Federation rose up in revolt, Resplendor was quick to join them. Geography Resplendor is a varied state, occupying the majority of land on the Western Island and surrounding islands. A lot of the land occupied by Resplendor is quite mountainous, and even the relatively flat lands of the Kingdom tend to involve a lot of foothills, forested slopes and rough terrain, with snow-capped peaks almost perpetually in sight. For this reason, you will see a lot of terraced farms further inland. Most of the major roads trace the bottom of valleys to avoid having to meander back and forth up and down steep slopes. The larger provincial capitals are built on flat lands to counteract this. However, once you get as far north as the city of Siccer, the land tends to flatten out significantly. In the cooler north provinces you find more flatlands, although the lands also become significantly colder. The climate in the lands is largely temperate, with warmer temperatures near the southern coasts and cooler temperatures in the north and higher up the slopes of the mountains. The large and mountainous realm of Resplendor often permits some strange weather patterns inland. Politics Resplendor is governed by an administrative bureaucracy under the unrestricted rulings of the monarch. There is no true separation of powers, and the monarch exercises absolute control over their realm, including occupying the position as Commander in Chief of the Royal Resplendorian Armed Forces. There are a number of landed noble titles in Resplendor. However, today these are mostly ceremonial, with landed nobles having very few rights over their lands directly, with most of the power over the land in the hands of the monarch. Most of their old duties have been taken over by the professional bureaucracy and, in conjunction with this, almost all of their old rights have been stripped. This happened some generations ago, and is accepted as status quo in modern Resplendor. Resplendor is a centralized, unitary state with no notable degree of federalization. Local governments tend to have limited power to maximize that available to the core state. The Kingdom of Resplendor is avowedly tolerant under Suina IV, with laws banning open displays of discrimination based on race, culture, religion, or any other grounds. Since the majority of religious scholars hold the view that many of the great gods in different faiths are in fact the same, just differently named and viewed, as well as the fact that Resplendor controls a large and culturally varied realm, this is a relatively easy-to-understand development. Monarchy The Resplendorian throne has a novel form of succession; when direct heirs to the current monarch exist, the kingdom is passed with absolute cognatic primogeniture to the oldest child of the monarch. This form of succession also stretches to grandchildren should none of the monarch's children outlive the monarch. However, when there is no legitimate child or grandchild to inherit, the crown becomes elective and the landed nobles of the realm may nominate who becomes the next monarch from amongst the ranks of the nobility, and the noble with the most votes becomes monarch. In older times, this tended to be the point that a new dynasty took power. Since in practice the power of the nobles was all but removed some generations ago and noble offices are appointed and removed at the will of the crown, the deceased monarch tends to have already heavily influenced the outcome of the succession, resulting in the crown staying within the same dynasty a lot more often in the generations since this change to noble power. Diplomatic Relations Resplendor has yet to establish further diplomatic relations than trade routes, although it has expressed the opinion that it wishes to be cordial with many other states. Economy Resplendor has a strong economy, held up by expansive territory and maritime trade. More on Resplendor's economy will become available later. Culture Resplendor has a rich and varied culture due to the large variety of peoples of varying cultures living together within the kingdom, enhanced by the realm's openness to trade allowing foreign influences to establish themselves in the realm. As such, the sheer variety of cultures in Resplendor is staggering. The core Resplendorian culture, however, is a cosmopolitan mix of foreign ideas adapted for a vaguely Germanic base. Resplendor's colonial-kingdom past was the original source of the cultural diversity and tolerance of its people. The Resplendorian individuals are often ethnically from manye different backgrounds, but culturally similar. Nevertheless, some notable differences are present even between neighbors in the Resplendorian culture. Religion A rather odd facet of Resplendorian culture is that an individual's worshiped Gods are chosen on a odd mix-and-match basis. Resplendor pays host to a number of temples and shrines to practically all of the major Gods and many of the lesser ones, and religious involvement varies massively for each among communities. The places of worship tend to correlate many incarnations of the Gods, based on the modern theological teaching of Interpretatio resplenda, noting that multiple gods from many religions may in fact be the same major Gods. What Gods one individual worships is usually dependent on cultural and family ties, upbringing, and personal choice. The Kingdom itself is technically a pluralist state. However, the royal dynasty and Suina herself have their own choices among the Gods to worship. This is the closest thing that the Kingdom of Resplendor has to an official religion, and many well-off Resplendorians like to pride themselves in following the same Gods by the same names as is done by the monarch. Category:GGG Category:Harvest Age Factions Category:Nations